


Sleepless

by CuppaGiotto



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, Depression, Drinking, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Keith (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Slow Burn, Threesome - M/M/M, Voyeurism, shklance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-20 10:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14892515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuppaGiotto/pseuds/CuppaGiotto
Summary: Lance thinks he feels lonely because he has an untapped voyeurism kink, particularly for two of his best friends Shiro and Keith who have been dating since they were in high school. After an incident involving too much fruit beer and too little sobriety on Lance’s part, Shiro makes a decision.AKA Lance, Keith and Shiro realize important things about each other and themselves.Spoiler alert: Lance does not have a voyeurism kink.





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a kind of 'coming of age' story but with less teenagers (mostly because I am not a teenager, and I am continually coming to understand myself and the people around me despite that). Who knows if that's how this story will turn out.
> 
> I will add tags and warnings as I go(and maybe take some away), but fair warning this story will contain some dark elements that I haven't exactly planned out, but... they will be there. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think, and if there are things you would like to see! :)
> 
> Also I went back and edited it, added some things and changed the summary because the story is slowly starting to take shape in my head.

Lance’s eyelids sank further and further down. The white board that had been in his field of vision gave way to a soothing and remote darkness. 

It wasn’t even a morning class; he’d picked this one specifically because it was an 11 am class, just enough time for him to sleep in a little, get some breakfast in his belly and head out the door at a leisurely pace. 

Today has not been one of those days.

The professor paced before the white board, a projector casting an eerie glow on her wrinkled face and on the words written on the white board behind her. Next to him, Keith and Shiro occasionally whispered to each other, but they mostly kept their gazes focused and forward. It was almost supernatural how in sync they were. 

“Hey,” Keith nudged his arm. Lance peered blearily up at Keith’s frown.

“Am I going to have to photocopy notes for you again?” Lance reached a hand up to his face and tried to peel back his own eyelids and got an unimpressed look in return. He settled himself back into the cradle of his folded arms and whuffled out a sigh.

“Nah, got it all up here in this ol’ noggin.” 

He tapped a finger against his temple before conking out once again.

 

The night was still young. Despite the sun struggling to keep it’s head above in the summer sky, the darkness began to bleed across the horizon.

Lance knew he would be facing another sleepless night.

It didn’t matter whether they were all together, playing video games at each other’s dorms when they were in the Garrison, or sipping fancy beers at college bars when, in show of solidarity, they all attended their undergrad at the same school. They never stopped playing video games, even when it changed from Hunk and Lance’s dorm to their apartment they shared near their university.

He had watched them for a long time now. 

First with wonder, the kind of feeling you get when you see your favorite power ranger or disney character for the first time at Disney World, and all you can do is stare speechless and try not to cry or scream when they reach out to hug you just because you are overwhelmed with the amount of wonder coursing through your body.

Then it was with jealousy, steeped bitter into resentment. That was when he’d found his voice and used it to make jokes and taunt the mullet on Keith’s head, even though it looked fucking hot on him, the bastard, or the literal way he took jokes and terrible puns. He couldn’t convince himself it was for any good reason-obviously Keith’s was the only mullet that made him that salty. 

In those early Garrison days, just hearing about Keith’s accomplishments incensed and irritated him for the rest of the day. Hunk would sit by and make the right soothing and indignant noises as Lance ranted and flailed. Or seeing Shiro’s quiet smile in his official military photo hung in the main hallway would make him forget everything he was doing for the rest of the day.

Lance stared at himself in the mirror of his new apartment. They were going out to celebrate the end of the semester and Shiro’s impending graduation. 

 

“Lance!” Lance snapped his head up and he pushed back from the desk forcefully, blinking rapidly. Next to him, Keith sighed and put a hand back on his shoulder. Lance looked between it and it’s owner, unsure if he wanted to fling the hand off or put it in his mouth. Or have it slap him.

Anyways.

“Lance,” Shiro leaned over Keith and smiled, “we’re going for drinks tonight to celebrate how hard we worked for this whole semester, are you up for it?”

“Well that,” Keith gave Shiro a knowing smile, “and we’re celebrating this guy’s graduation. So you better be coming.” Despite his words, he squeezed Lance’s shoulder.

In more ways than you’d think, Lance thought glumly.

“Totallyy~dudes, I mean still need to maintain my amazing dartboard score.” 

 

Keith was only one year behind him, but Lance had switched his major twice and therefore had another two years to go. Luckily, he was able to get a class that spring with both Keith and Shiro. 

He combed absentmindedly through his hair, thinking of his beautiful, unfairly attractive friends.

Shiro. The first time he saw Shiro, he was standing nervously in front of an auditorium full of freshmen students. The school saw him as a well fitting representation of Garrison values, and asked him to speak during Lance’s freshmen orientation about what to expect from the Garrison, and themselves.

“Our purpose isn’t necessarily to uphold our duties-” He had gotten a sharp, irritated look from Iverson for that, “-but to uphold ourselves to the standards we put in place to protect others and our country.”

There was a little red flush across his sharp cheekbones and nose, but he spoke clearly and, most importantly, kindly. Lance smiled at his pauses for deep breaths and to straighten his broad shoulders. He silently mouthed the name the student had introduced himself with. 

“My name is Takashi Shirogane, but most people here at the Garrison call me ‘Shiro’ for short.”

He silently hoped Shiro would see his face in the light from the projector screen, to have Shiro see him smiling and hear the encouraging noises he was making in the back of his throat. That he wasn’t as alone up on that podium as he probably thought.

He didn’t see him again until his second semester of sophomore year.

He was in class with Hunk, Pidge and, strangely enough, Keith. 

They had slowly begun to absorb him into their friend group and despite the still ongoing bickering between Lance and Keith, were settling into a routine of meeting up after class at each other’s rooms to play video games and do homework, theoretically. 

The teacher told them another student would be assisting and helping tutoring students in the class.

Shiro walked into the classroom, and a smile broke out across his handsome face as he caught sight of Keith who raised a hand in greeting, an unconscious grin on his lips. Lance looked from those lips to Shiro’s own sweet smile, and felt someone shove a rock down his esophagus. 

Ah. Well, maybe they were friends? Lance hated himself for the hopeful tone in his mind.

“You, ah, know him?” Keith glanced over at Lance and blinked like he forgot he was there. 

He smiled.

“Yeah.”

After that, Lance watched the interactions between them like a hawk, unintentionally drawn to their smiles and the way they beamed at each other whenever Shiro walked into class. He didn’t really care, like, Shiro is super attractive and Keith sort of is too, but it’s not like they were his type really. Besides, Lily Saunders was in the class and she was literally the most beautiful human being he’d ever seen. And the girl he ended up losing his virginity to.

He could only lie to himself for so long though. He wasn’t stupid. He recognized the flutters in his belly for what they were. He just couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get over it. Lance couldn’t convince himself of anything anymore, except that the feelings that burned like shards of ice in his gut grew every time he saw them together.

Shiro and Keith had always been close, but when they started dating, they were inseparable. It wasn’t just because they were the hottest two people in the garrison going out, a power couple like Beyonce and Jay Z if Jay Z wasn’t ugly, and also a damn fool for cheating on Beyonce like that. The way Shiro gently tapped Keith’s nose when it was screwed up with a scowl. Or the time Lance caught Keith holding Shiro so very carefully, who was curled up under some bleachers, smaller and more vulnerable than a guy of that magnitude and presence should ever look.

Each time he walked in on those moments, he felt the intimacy on a tangible level-it hung around both Shiro and Keith like something sheer and delicate. And he was just looking in, or looking out. 

Keith wasn’t the most social of people, really his friend group consisted of Lance, Pidge and Hunk, and at some point he started inviting Shiro to Taco Tuesdays. Lance and Pidge counted their friend group as a success once they all started following each other on Snapchat (or rather, Pidge and Lance had Snapchat and made Keith and Shiro get accounts too. Hunk had one but he rarely used it, unfortunately.)

He blinked and told himself to stop reminiscing about things that made him feel whiney. On the phone in front of him, Keith’s snapchat username popped up in a notification. He opened it now and saw Keith had sent him some video snaps which he was reluctant to open because he knew. 

He knew.

He opened them and was blinded by a series of videos of Shiro flexing his pecs in perfect rhythm to “Kiss the Girl”, which really was incredibly impressive considering the actual tempo of the song. He could hear Keith give an ugly snort and Pidge’s screams for him to stop, which would have been convincing if he didn’t catch glimpses of her wide grin in the background. .

Keith turned the camera to face him and Shiro and kissed his cheek.

“Find you a man who can literally pick you with one arm and who also knows Disney songs by heart.”

Lance watched more videos of them walking their dogs, Red and Black (which Lance pointed out sounded mildly racist), in the park nearby their condo. Sunlight filtered through the keyhole shaped gaps in the trees overhead, onto their sneakers and clasped hands.

His belly twisted with a strange mixture of that gross, grasping resentment and this growing want. It fluttered within him, like the frantic speed of his pulse all throughout his body, climbing up his spine like bright, leafy vines on a trellis, trembling in the wind. Sometimes after he saw them together like that, he found himself hard and so sensitive all it took was the glide of his fingertips over its length to have him jolt and shudder. 

He could easily deflate his erection by just picturing himself there. Between them, laughing and touching them tenderly, and then much more intimately. How sad was his self esteem that he could turn his raging hard on into half mast by picturing himself with the two people he’d had the biggest crush on, mullet and stubborn wills notwithstanding? Oh sure, it wasn’t like he was as pure as the driven snow. He’d had sex. Like, several times.

And okay, maybe those times were with people he’d met on Tinder and Grindr, and also that girl Lily Saunders who had shocked him by actually flirting back when they were both assigned to retrieve the sports equipment in the high school gym storage closet that smelled of sweat, spit, and weirdly enough, pizza sauce.

Those times though, the nerves and thrill he felt quickly dissolved into some hollow part of himself. He’d lay in bed afterwards and watched the sun peek through the blinds, feeling, and not feeling, their skin against his. It wasn’t disgust, he told himself. It’s not like anyone is supposed to get attached over a meaningless hookup anyways.

It wasn’t disgust. 

He just felt tired and too weird to process what had actually transpired, especially because he’d been obsessing about sex and attractive people and boobs and dicks, and when he was presented with the actual thing, he…. 

He just wasn’t wowed. Ya know? But he still thought about it all the time.

He’d begun to find it easier to orgasm by picturing other people having sex. Eventually, all he could picture was them. Shiro and Keith. Keith split apart on Shiro’s cock. Shiro squirming with sweat gleaming on his face as Keith rode him like a muthafucking Prince riding into battle. Shiro swallowing Keith down slowly with intent.

Now that. Lance’s head thumped back on the cushion behind him and sighed dreamily. That was fucking hot. And he didn’t even need to be a part of it. Well, he did and he didn’t. 

“Maybe you should talk to them. Like, tell them to not be so mushy when we’re all hanging out.”

Hunk was leaning back in his computer chair, fiddling with something Pidge had given him that afternoon. He began tossing it up in the air and catching it idly, the setting sun spilling through the window like a thick, velvet curtain. 

Even after graduating the Garrison and getting their own places once they stopped living in the dorms, Lance still found himself eating salt and vinegar chips on Hunk’s bed just as he did the very first time they hung out.

“It doesn’t matter Hunk. They can be sitting next to each other without touching and I’m basically sporting a fucking tent pole under their noses everytime I roll up.”

“Oh my God, Lance. Really?” Lance smirked and flung himself back on Hunk’s bed. His mattress pad was memory foam so he always loved snuggling into his sheets. 

“Besides, I don’t want to them to stop being themselves or anything. I just like, want to watch them fu-, er, make love,” he corrected himself hastily. Even he was wearing thin on the number of times he said fuck in regards to Shiro and Keith. The most recent of which was watching Shiro slam Keith down on the mats during combat practice. 

Fuck. 

“Maybe that’s your kink or something,” they both turned simultaneously to Pidge who had entered their room soundlessly, typing out rapid fire texts on their phone without pause.

“What, watching them?” Pidge raised their eyebrows and shrugged in response.

“Yeah, like voyeurism or something. I mean, there’s a whole category on pornhub for it. You should probably do some actual research on it in order to really understand how that works.” 

Lance was silent. “You were on pornhub?” 

Pidge sighed.

“As much as I’d like to continue this conversation about your budding sexuality and kinks, I really just came in for the gear I gave Hunk this morning.” Hunk tossed it to them without leaving his chair. 

“Thanks. Oh, and Lance?” He stopped frowning at the ceiling and glanced over.

“The only reason I was on pornhub was because someone uploaded the complete series of Spongebob on there. Just so you know.”

Lance and Hunk stared at each other in surprise, and then they grinned. 

“Pornhub and chill?”

“Pornhub and chill, my dude.”

 

The thing was, Lance did do some research. And by research he did a quick look on pornhub and google, but he still felt this could possibly explain his simultaneous obsession with them, and with his repulsion at the thought of himself with them.

If just wanting to watch people have sex is an actual kink, maybe Pidge is onto something, Lance thought the next morning, looking out the window that was nearest to his cubicle with bleary and sleep caked eyes. 

The last couple weeks he’d been struggling to close his eyes and not think of them when he laid in bed at night, thinking of the strange emotions coursing underneath his skin when he did. At that contradiction, of what felt like butterflies in his tummy, and also something dangerous and serpentine sliding under the skin of his back and neck. He felt them coalescing, bright and swift like the shadows of silvery fish catching glances of sunlight under a dark tide.

If he was being honest, the last eight months, his bedtime became later and later. Which should have been the opposite since he was doing well in his classes, and had a sweet job manning the front desk of the university library where he could work on his homework and flirt with the boy working the desk with him.

At night though, he’d stare at the ceiling, pace across his room, and fuck around on his laptop. 

He didn’t want to go to sleep.

It would mean closing his eyes, and opening them to another day where that strange hollow space in him seem to widen and solidify, despite the absence of space it occupied. He told himself he had the weekend to look forward to, when all his friends got together to bitch about being college students with responsiblities and the raw, unfiltered beer at some of the breweries popping up around town. 

He would get to see them, and everything would fall into place again. 

I could just be in the same room as them and honestly have a better time jerking off than any sort of kinky sex or blow jobs could accomplish. They could just be with each and be themselves. Loving each other with that fierce determination they had. There was a kind of pureness to their love, Lance mused. Like they believed in each other, saw each other at their best and their worst, and yet they continued on stronger than ever before.

It was... beautiful, if he was honest.. 

Lance had come across them once out on the Oval, which had towering, old elm trees lining the walkways and a swath of dark green grass carpeting the outside the Registrar's office. Keith was relaxed back against the base of one of the trees, with Shiro’s head in his lap. He laid on his side, his face turned towards Keith’s stomach and had his arms wrapped snugly around his waist. 

Lance’s stomach sank, before it rocketed his his chest into his throat. The nerves danced giddily in his belly, and they sucked all the energy and thoughts he had in his mind. He had been power walking to the library on the other side when he saw them, and stood stuck as he watched. Keith’s hand stroking the white forelock back from Shiro’s forehead. Shiro actually sleeping (Lance didn’t believe he was capable of it until that point).

Keith’s gaze never left Shiro’s face. His mouth shaped the words before he leaned down, eyes unwavering, and kissed the side of his head.

“I love you.” 

Silly as it may sound, Lance didn’t think that kind of love came multiple times in a lifetime. They were soulmates, in every sense of the word-Shiro balanced out the fiery and fierce love from Keith with his steady patience, and equal will to match. And even though Keith was like, a third the size of Shiro, anyone who messed with Shiro met their demise at the end of Keith’s fist (no joke it literally brought Lance to tears when the gang taught Keith how to play Punch Buggie. That was the first and last time they played it.)

Their picture better be under the dictionary definition of true love. He wanted to watch them express that love to each other, among other things.

He felt alive, watching them.

Lance didn’t quite understand why he just couldn’t picture himself with one of them, or both of them. It was like the anxiety that remained a low hum in his belly rose up and crawled throughout his whole body, until he felt sick. 

He liked sex though.

Maybe, that’s why voyeurism was his thing. He could feel turned on and aroused, but the best orgasms existed outside of himself. He stayed up night after night, wondering, just what it would be like to sit apart and watch. If they would even consider such a thing.

Which is how he ended up in his current predicament.

Hunk had decided everyone needed to meet up at Altea Locale*, a local artisan beer and pizza place that opened off of main street, where he was currently slumped over the fancy oak plank bar, belly distended with various hipster beers and ciders. Pidge munched on a slice next to him, watching him as they chewed.

Nearby the open seating area on the opposite end of the bar, Hunk, Keith and Shiro were throwing darts at a checkerboard, chatting and laughing quietly. 

“Hooow’s the pizzaa?” Lance let out a rumbling belch. Pidge shrugged and looked down, their face in shadow. 

Ah, so it was like that, then. Pity.

He laid a comforting, heavy hand on Pidge’s shoulder who tried fruitlessly to shrug him off in irritation.

“Are you seriously drunk off of beer?” Lance lifted his head and glared muzzily at his longtime, yet trying, friend. He gestured to both samplers he had ordered, each little glass now empty save for a coat of foam around the rims. He belched again.

“Look, Pidgey, Pidgeon... iz’... iz alotta beer… A lot! My beer baby will be due soon…” Pidge looked at his stomach and wrinkled their nose. 

“Gross…”

“IT’S NOT-hicc-GROSS, YOU-YOU PIDGEON. IT. IS. BEAUTIFUL!”

“Okay, okay. It’s beautiful Lance. Happy?”

“NO!” He yelled, already on a roll, “I HAVE A VOYEURISM KINK AND THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE I WANT TO WATCH ARE PRETTY MUCH BEYONCE AND JAY Z, ‘KAY?”

Pidge had recoiled by this point as he flailed up and waved his arms. Jesus, they were going to get thrown out.

“Alright, alright! So you want to watch Beyonce and Jay Z have sex, which I don’t know why you would because Jay Z kind of sucks. But there’s nothing wrong with that.” Lance sighed, long suffering.

“Nooooo, I want to watch the power couple,” He leaned in, still loud enough to be heard in the bar even though he was whispering. 

“...The power couple? What power couple?”

“Our power couple… Tha king and… queen? No, king… of Altea... 

“I want to watch Keith and Shiro, Pidge. But like, because they’re so beautiful, you know? Pidge? Like, I want to see them kiss, and then-”

“Alright, it’s probably time we take you home and put you to bed.”

“-like, make love, or like, well, rough sex, too, like against a fuckin’ wall or somethin.... Wow that felt awkward saying that to you for some reason.”

Pidge abandoned their cold pizza and stood up, propping Lance up from the bar.

“Noooooo, I wanna see Keith do that thing where when Shiro kisses him and tries to pull away, he just keeps following him until he’s like halfway on him an--”

“-Hey! Shiro? Hunk? Think one of you can carry Lance to the car? He’s drunk off his ass on fruit beer.” Pidge propped him up so he was leaning against their shoulder, and he lifted a hand to pull at their tufts of hair.

“Beer baby…” He whispered and burped against their hair. 

Pidge grumbled, shoving at Lance’s increasingly heavy body.

“Keith!” they cried in relief once they caught sight of his stiff profile as he was exiting the bathroom next to the bar.

“O-oh hey! Are you guys okay? I really didn’t hear anything in the bathroom nearby so…” Pidge gave him a dry look and shoved at Lance again who had lolled against them and rolled his face towards Keith. 

“Sure, Keith. Please just take him before he suffocates me. Or I suffocate him, which is probably more likely in this case.” Keith scrambled to grab the dead weight as Pidge shoved him off them unceremoniously.

“Hey! Pidge, you can’t just-”

“Keeeeeef… Ey buddy, I…” Lance blinked up at Keith’s disgruntled face and blinked, suddenly silent.

“...what? What’s wrong with you? Why are you just staring?”

“Keith, I…” There was a heavy pause. They stared at each other, before Lance promptly leaned forward and vomited all over Keith’s shoes.

“Fucking-! Hey, a little help over here guys??”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  
*This is because the pizza and general Italian fare in Altea sucked balls. Like it was either loaded with sugary and yet bland, sad pizza sauce and the dough made from ground of pieces of cardboard (probably). Hunk loved Italian food, and especially pizza (the best gift he'd ever received was a beautiful pizza stone from Sur La Table several years ago), so he was devastated by Altea’s meager pickings. That is why anytime a pizza place opened up, Hunk continued his humble, yet noble quest to find the best in Altea. It was often an exhausting and defeating undertaking but alas… someone had to do it.

**Author's Note:**

> Currently working on Chapter 2!~ :D


End file.
